Boy In My Mirror
by xGlowingAngelx
Summary: Craig Centric One Shot Set around the reveal of his affair with JP.


_AN: I probably shouldn't be writing any other fics whilst I still have updates for TTT to write, but this came to me whilst I was stuck at major writers block. The title is inspired by the Britney Spears song 'Girl In My Mirror'. Obviously, with a sex change :P Also, I'm not sure it makes all that much sense at the end. I just drifted along, because I got bored :P_

**Boy In My Mirror**

-

The boy in my mirror isn't me. Sure, he has the same chocolate brown eyes. The same brunette hair. The same body structure. But his face is much more relaxed than mine. He looks comfortable. He doesn't look like someone that cried himself to sleep last night. He doesn't look like someone that could cause so much heartache and damage just to please his own needs. He doesn't look like someone that wishes he was anybody else right now.

-

The boy in my mirror isn't me. I know because, when I smile at him, he smiles back at me. When he manages to smile, though, he doesn't look like he's screaming inside. He doesn't look like his smile is painted on. Like it's all a big façade, hiding a broken shell underneath. He looks like he's supposed to look.

The cardigan he's wearing - black and white and decorated with ridiculously big snowflakes that many have said look…… _gay - _looks ten times too big for him. He looks lost against the vibrant pattern. Like he's trying to cover himself from the world. Avoiding all the questions he doesn't have the answers to. The faces that know him so well, yet look at him like he's a stranger. I wonder if he's looking at me that way, too.

His eyes appear darker than I'm familiar with. They're a deeper brown. The kind of brown that scares people off. Makes them want to walk the other way. Makes him appear a shadow of his own self.

-

I know what people say about me. I know they're all out there judging me right now. I know they all call me names I've heard myself say a thousand times before. _Coward. Liar. Cheat._ I wonder if they realise I don't need them to tell me what I already know. I wonder when exactly they earned the right to judge me. I wonder how many of them could honestly hold their hands up and say they are saints.

-

The boy in my mirror looks pale. His complexion is harshly washed of it's usual brightness. His normally red cheeks are bare. His eyes are lost of all their sparkle. His lips look pursed and thin. Like he's holding something back that he's desperate to let out.

His hand runs wearily across his face and I feel his stubble. He looks….. _Grown up _with it. The irony is not lost on either of us.

I can see him avoiding eye contact with me. He's trying to look at me, but every time he lifts his head, he backs out and looks anywhere else. Anywhere but at the pathetic, lost soul that's brought him here.

In some unjustified, twisted way, I long to reach out to him. To know how to free him of the ache he's feeling. To soothe him and then watch him spread his wings and start again.

-

The boy in my mirror looks like a whirlpool of emotions. He looks Relieved. Grateful. Free. He looks Heartbroken. Angry. Alone. I wonder how I'm supposed to know how to get him through this. How do I bring myself to pick up the pieces of something I broke? Knowing that fixing it would be the toughest job of all. I wonder how many shards of broken glass I can step on before I finally crumble and surrender myself to the hurt. I wonder if I'll ever be strong enough to win the battle.

I can easily hide myself away. Pretend I'm somewhere else. Living somebody else's life. I've been doing it for the last few months. I pretty much excel at it now.

-

It's easy to know they're all talking. Their conversations and passing in levels barely resembling a whisper, but I don't need to hear the words to know what they're saying. I don't need to be there to hear their opinions. Their judgements. I've replayed them all countless times in my head before now. Every question. Every insult. Every truth. Many of them have been looped countless times. I could recite them word for word, yet the sharp honesty of them still scorns me that little bit more each time and I know even when the pain finally leaves, the scars they leave behind still remain. And that's the biggest pain of all.

-

The boy in my mirror looks tired. His eyes are circled with dark rings that overshadow the long black eyelashes many say are his best feature. His lips are cracked and pale and I fight the urge to touch them, just to check they belong to me.

His shoulders are hunched up around his neck and he looks lifeless. Like he's just the spirit of someone that disappeared a long time ago, but wants to see the rest of his story unfold. Wants to see if fairytales ever really get their happy endings.

He's screaming. His lips aren't moving, but I can hear the sound. He's pleading for it to stop. He wants to block it all out and I know better than anyone that it's never that easy.

I wonder if the heartache will surpass. Whether he'll ever be able to wake up one morning and smile, knowing that he overcame all the hurdles and came out fighting. I wonder how long it will take.

-

The boy in my mirror isn't me. He doesn't feel the need to justify every move he makes, whilst wishing he didn't have to. He looks cold and empty. The feelings I feel inside. He looks like someone that would wake up in the morning and pull the duvet over his head, desperate to rewind time and have just a couple more hours sleep. He looks like someone that I can identify only as a stranger. Someone even I am not familiar. Someone I sympathise with whilst wanting to never have to see his face again.

-

I wonder if he has to hold back laughing just like I do because he replays the situation in his head more than enough times and is fully aware of how ridiculous it is. Realises that he was in too deep all along, yet just too blind - too _powerless _- to realise it.

The boy in my mirror is the very same boy that made all the memories I hold with me like the present. His earliest Christmas memory. His 18th Birthday. His first kiss. His first love. His true love. He was the one that was coward enough to hide away from the world because of mistakes _I _made. He was the one that painted over the truth because _I_ was to scared to face the reality.

He was the one that created the lie he told. He was the one that caused the damage I tried to dig him out of with the lies he fed me. I wonder if he lives with the regrets as much as I do.

-

The boy in my mirror looks tired. I can see the dark of the night creeping through the gap in my curtains and I can't help but wonder whether they're sleeping right now. Are they in the safety of their own beds, knowing that the one that turned their lives upside down is suffering as much as they are? Is she wishing I would have kissed her one last time before she fell asleep? Is he wishing we were lay in each others arms right now, with only our breathing for sound?

Those are the questions that have haunted me every night for the last few days. I'd tried countless times to stop myself thinking them. Thinking _about them. But I failed miserably, just as I normally did. _

_-_

_The boy in my mirror has watched his world turn upside down by it's own self destruction. He's watched me have it all and lose it all in countless cruel twists of fates. He's watched my lust turn to love. My hopes turn to fears. My heartfelt confessions turn to heartbroken pleas. He's seen it all. _

_Yet he does nothing about it. Because he knows as well as they do that it's nothing more than I deserve. Because this is payback for every heartache I created. The heartache I only have myself to blame for. _

_And that's how I know. The boy in my mirror? He's not me. _


End file.
